RE: 💬 A Simple Explanation Of The Lightning Network For Bitcoin, The Off-chain Solution To The Current Scalability Issues
I haven't really thought about the reasons why someone would not want to be part of such a big network. Have you?
I think the "slow adoption" combined with high fees for opening a channel will be the main issues why people will not immediately jump on Lightning - and if the Lightning network will remain small for a year or two, then it may already be too late.
The Bitcoin community have become thoroughly split, and some people will be against lightning just because they happen to be situated at the other side of the split. Personally I hope Lightning will work out - I just don't think it will be the silver bullet for the capacity problems Bitcoin is facing.
I'm among those that have both predicted the current Bitcoin capacity crisis for years already, and also one of those that thinks the crisis is completely meaningless and could have been easily avoided through modest increases in the block size.
Thanks for your comment on this @tobixen! You seem to have put some though in this :-)
That split is a battle that will remain I guess. It is a dangerous combination of ideology, greed and pride. I haven't been deeply involved in the discussions, but it's just crappy to see that they seem to be some people's full-time job to defend 'a side'. Not adding much value to the world.
BTW, how will the costs for opening a payment channel be determined? Who decides on those fees?
One has to get a bitcoin transaction mined to be able to open a channel.
The cost for a bitcoin transaction depends on how much people are willing to pay for it.
There is currently a fee market with a fixed supply (1 MB block chain space every ~10 minutes) and variable demand - an often-used analogy is a bus with a fixed number of seats and people bidding for getting a place on the bus.
There seems to be a propaganda war going on ... while I think this can perfectly be explained without resorting to conspiracy theories, I do have my own conspiracy theory explaining why we have such a split.